I am sure it is safe to say that each of us has had times in our lives when we had hopes, anticipation, expectations and events where we desired a certain outcome. I am sure it is equally safe to say that when any of them did not turn out the way we had wished, we felt some measure of pain, disappointment, anger, sadness, or turmoil. Can you relate? The purpose of this article is to change that. Just as alchemy can turn base metal into gold, you will soon learn how to turn your suffering into golden freedom from inner anguish. Our human minds, thoughts, and beliefs have been conditioned for eons to believe that some future event will bring us happiness. As a result, we are constantly seeking. We are projecting our vibrant and passionately alive state on the condition that once we have whatever event, person, material thing, title, award, or circumstance, we will THEN have happiness. Our ego tricks us to believe that we are not sufficient at the present moment. No, we dont have such and such yet; but once we do THEN we can be happy. Does any of this sound familiar? In any area? In any way? When whatever we receive is not to our liking, we feel resistance. It is the resistance to our deep belief that our current state of being is not good enough which has us hinging our happiness on something we think we need to acquire in order to feel happier. It is seeking in the future. Please let me know when you arrive at your future, I would like to meet you! Shall I check back with you in ten minutes? Will you be there then? I didnt think so. Where will you be? In the moment. Please do tell me when you will ever NOT be IN the moment, I would like to meet you too! THIS moment is an extraordinarily powerful and positive place to be. The alchemy occurs when we fully accept this moment, what we have, and the situation at hand exactly as IT IS NOW, rather than resist it. Perhaps this moment may not be your preference. That is awareness! Perhaps you would prefer this moment to look different, but it does not. It is what it is, and there is a reason for it to be so. Why? Ill tell you. Every event in our life is brought to us in order to help us grow from within to BE the highest and best version of ourselves we can ever hope to create. In order to evolve internally, in love, compassion, confidence, inner strength, gentleness, and belief in ourselves, there must be an external catalyst for our growth. That catalyst is the circumstance we RESIST, or try to GET in order to believe we are, in fact, valued, loved, lovable, whole and complete as we are NOW. Does this mean we stop doing? No. It means we start BEING, rather than seeking or resisting and avoiding. If you find that you are catapulted into the throws emotional turmoil, then you are NOT doing one thing: ACCEPTING. Accepting does not mean allowing yourself to be abused, or the abuser. The acceptance I am speaking of is stepping back for one enormous moment, and WATCHING your emotional reaction to any situation where you feel resistance. Once you stop, and look at yourself as if you were on a movie screen and say: Look at how I am reacting. Look at what Im feeling because of this situation. The moment you can catch yourself and become the watcher (as Eckhart Tolle states) you immediately disengage yourself from the emotional drama of the situation. Then, you can ACCEPT it just for what it is. As soon as you accept it, alchemy occurs; you are no longer in pain. Your suffering has been transformed into freedom from suffering. You can then look at the situation with some measure of objectivity, and if you cant laugh at it, you can at least come to peace with it. Going back to an analogy to nature, suppose you have a small rose bush in your garden. You WANT it to bloom, and give you one hundred perfect roses. It blooms, and gives you two instead. Do you stomp, scream, and rip the rose bush out of the ground by its roots? No. You ACCEPT that this is what you received. Perhaps it wasnt yet ready this season to bloom, as you WANT it to. Perhaps it will never bloom. It has NOTHING to do with YOU! It is the same with people. The way they are, is simply the way they are. Circumstances are the way they are. It is in THIS moment that you can make a decision based on awareness, stemming from acceptance, as to a course of action or inaction that will serve your best interest. You cannot make a beneficial decision based on awareness when you are caught in the drama of resisting what is, now. However, once you ACCEPT what is, now, you are then free to face whatever it is you are seeking, or avoiding. Then you will find you are evolving, rather than creating a Movie-of-the-week miniseries out of your emotional turmoil. Your turmoil exists solely in your invested interest in keeping the status quo, (if you are resisting) or in changing the status quo if you are seeking. Your personal alchemy is the golden moment of acceptance, which will transform your suffering into freedom from its tyranny forever. Copyright Barbara Rose. All Rights Reserved. |
